Here's the raw & unedited birth story I wrote shortly after delivering my first baby, Benjamin.
Forewarning: Might be graphic to some people? I dunno, if you're not crazy into birth like me.
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Tim and I spent all night Friday night laying on the couch, dreaming about our baby together and reveling in what we thought would be our last week or two alone. After hours of talking, we finally fell asleep a little after midnight. In retrospect, it was the most perfect way I can imagine spending our last night as a married couple sans child. Not even five minutes after falling asleep, I was suddenly woken by a gush of water (not huge, but enough to know that it meant something) and a painful cramp.
I immediately woke Tim up and asked him to get me a towel. I called the doctor, who told me to get to the hospital, and then called my mom. During our call, I had my first REAL contraction. I knew instantly that I had never before had a TRUE contraction. I'd had lots of things that I thought were contractions, but now I know why people say, "You'll just know when it's labor - trust me." Thinking we had lots of time, we slowly started packing things up and trying to figure out what we needed. My contractions started coming on really fast and REALLY hard, and I couldn't even stand through them. I told Tim that we needed to hurry things along, so we started throwing things in the car and headed to the hospital. The contractions kept getting even stronger, and by the time we got to the hospital (about a ten minute drive), they were coming on every four minutes.
I got wheeled up to L&D where the nurse did some sort of paper test to see if my water had broken. She said it was supposed to turn blue after wiping me if there were any traces of amniotic fluid. It, of course, did not. My heart dropped as I realized that this might not be "it." She decided to check me and the look on her face was priceless. She was like, "Oh honey, you're 7 cm and your water definitely broke! We're having a baby tonight - and soon!" By this point, the contractions were pretty much one on top of the other and I thought I'd pass out and throw up with each one. I tried the birth ball and walking around, and both only made things so much worse. Tim tried to rub my back, arms, legs, head, etc., and it also made the pain worse. I was literally seeing stars with every contraction by the time I decided to get my epidural. At that point, I was 8 cm dilated. After the epi, I dilated to 10 in probably ten minutes or so. It was unreal how quickly things unfolded! The epi was dreamland and I never felt another contraction (at least not in the way that I had been feeling them). I felt pretty guilty about caving, but in retrospect I don't know how I could have survived two hours of pushing in the intense pain I was feeling.
Pushing started around 3:45 a.m. and though I was pushing well, Benjamin kept coming down and then going back up. After an hour and a half, I found that holding both my legs myself while having the nurse and Tim's hands on my feet that I could push again worked much better and he came right down. The nurse went and got the doctor after having me feel his head - coolest thing EVER! Right as the doctor got in the room, I started to feel extremely nauseous and threw up for what seemed eternities. After I recovered from that humiliating experience, it was one more round of pushing and he came flying out, crying his lungs out!
The doctor placed him on my stomach and I was officially so in love I couldn't see straight! At 8 lbs, 1 oz and 18 inches, he's a short little chunk. He's gorgeous, healthy, has lots of hair and is pretty much the perfect baby. We haven't had a single problem breastfeeding, he rarely cries and his favorite place in the world is in mine or Tim's arms. Life is good.
If you're into really long videos, have at it :)
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